“Eskom CEO’s claims are lies”- DA

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has lashed out at Acting Eskom CEO, Brain Molefe, for what it descried as “keeping in the country in the dark” about the real status of struggling power utility Eskom.

Earlier today Molefe stated that the state-owned parastatal would not implement any load-shedding during winter and that any planned maintenance to aging infrastructure would be undertaken with as little interruption as possible.

In a statement, the party’s Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, Natasha Mazzone, labelled Molefe’s remarks that Eskom had outdone itself during the first half of the year as “positively schizophrenic”, and “blatant lies”.

“His statement that there will be load shedding “here and there” inspires zero confidence in how Eskom is being managed as it continues to keep South Africans in the dark,” Mazzone said.

She also took a swipe at Molefe’s claims that the “war room” effort under the Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa had been successful, describing the allegation as arrogant.

“South Africans have every right to be furious at the self-satisfied statement made by Mr Molefe, when we see the constant shedding of jobs and the collapse of our economy due to Eskom’s inability to maintain and ensure a secure and sustainable electricity supply.

“In a recent questions and answers session to the Deputy President, I asked for details on the successes and the functioning of the war room. To date we have not received a long overdue parliamentary briefing on this so called “war room” and the secrecy around it remains a great concern,” she said.